When I stepped onto my husband’s private jet, another woman was sitting in my usual seat beside him.

The headquarters of Prescott Technologies in Hudson Yards was a monument of glass and steel, towering sixty stories above the Manhattan skyline.

At nine o'clock the following morning, Aaron burst through the revolving glass doors, flanked by two private bodyguards he had hired at the airport. Jasmine followed three paces behind, looking disheveled and terrified, clutching a leather binder to her chest.

"Mr. Prescott," the lobby security guard said, stepping out from behind the desk. He did not smile. He did not swipe Aaron through the executive turnstiles.

"Step aside, Roberts," Aaron barked. "I don't have time for this."

"I can't do that, sir. Your executive access badge has been suspended by order of the Board of Directors."

"I am the Chairman of the Board! I am the Chief Executive Officer! I own this building!"

"Actually, Aaron, you don't."

The voice came from the private mezzanine elevator.

Marcus Vance stepped forward, holding a silver-tipped walking cane, his bespoke Savile Row suit immaculate. Behind him stood four members of the Prescott Technologies Board of Directors—men who, forty-eight hours ago, laughed at Aaron’s jokes and clinked glasses with him at exclusive private clubs.

"Marcus," Aaron growled, his fists clenching at his sides. "You tell Alyssa that if she thinks this legal stunt is going to force me to apologize, she’s out of her mind. I will sue her for every dime she has. I will file for divorce and take half of Lumina!"

Marcus smiled thinly, a look of profound, aristocratic pity in his cold gray eyes. "Take half of Lumina? My dear boy, Lumina Holdings is protected by a generation-skipping dynastic trust established in 1924, long before your grandfather even learned to balance a ledger. You signed a prenuptial agreement that explicitly waived any claim to Sterling ancestral assets. Did you honestly believe our attorneys didn't know what they were doing?"

"The board is mine!" Aaron shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the directors. "Arthur! David! You owe me! I brought this company to market!"

Arthur Pendelton, the senior board member and a legendary Wall Street investor, looked at Aaron with cold disgust.

"You brought us a house of cards, Aaron," Arthur said. "Lumina called the one point five billion dollar debt facility this morning. We don't have the cash reserves to satisfy the debt without liquidating our operating capital. Furthermore, without the thirteen core patents, our enterprise contracts with the Department of Defense and Microsoft are null and void under the breach-of-warranty clauses."

"I can fix it!" Aaron pleaded, his voice rising in desperation. "We can renegotiate! Alyssa is my wife! She's just having an emotional breakdown because she felt disrespected on the flight to Paris!"

"She is not having an emotional breakdown, Mr. Prescott," Marcus said, stepping aside and gesturing toward the private elevator. "She is having a board meeting. And she is waiting for you on the sixtieth floor."

Aaron didn't wait. He shoved past the security gate, ignoring the warning sirens, and dragged Jasmine into the private elevator. He pressed the button for the penthouse boardroom, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped animal.

*I can talk her down,* he told himself frantically as the elevator shot upward at twenty feet per second. *She loves me. She has always loved me. She spent seven years putting up with my mother, putting up with my long hours, putting up with everything. She’s just hurt. A woman who loves you will always fold if you know which buttons to push.*

The elevator chime rang. The double doors slid open onto the panoramic floor of the executive boardroom.

The room was vast, overlooking the Hudson River. Sitting at the far end of the sixty-foot mahogany conference table was a single figure.

Alyssa.

She was dressed in a tailored midnight-blue power suit. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek, severe chignon. On her wrist was a vintage Patek Philippe watch that had belonged to her father. She was sipping green tea from a porcelain cup, looking through a leather-bound file.

She didn't look angry. She didn't look hurt.